Capillary electrophoresis has become a popular technique for separating charged molecular species in solution. The technique is performed in small capillary tubes to reduce band broadening effects due to thermal convection and hence improve resolving power.
The small tubes imply that minute volumes of materials, on the order of picoliters, must be handled to inject the sample into the separation capillary tube.
Current techniques for injection include electromigration and siphoning of sample from a container into a continuous separation tube. Both of these techniques suffer from relatively poor reproducibility, and electromigration additionally suffers from electrophoretic mobility-based bias. For both sampling techniques the input end of the analysis capillary tube must be transferred from a buffer reservoir to a reservoir holding the sample. Thus, a mechanical manipulation is involved. For the siphoning injection, the sample reservoir is raised above the buffer reservoir holding the exit end of the capillary for a fixed length of time.
An electromigration injection is effected by applying an appropriately polarized electric potential across the capillary tube for a given duration while the entrance end of the capillary is in the sample reservoir. This can lead to sampling bias because a disproportionately larger quantity of the species with higher electrophoretic mobilities migrate into the tube. The capillary is removed from the sample reservoir and replaced into the entrance buffer reservoir after the injection duration for both techniques.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,908,112 to Pace describes a micro-machined structure that includes a channel for the separation and a separate channel that meets the separation channel in a T-intersection and contains electrodes to produce electroosmotic flow for injection of sample into the separation channel.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,141,621 to Zare et al. discloses a capillary electrophoresis method and apparatus which applies a potential at two buffer reservoirs located at opposite ends of a capillary column. Samples are introduced without the need to disengage the electyric field, due to the fact that the injector is grounded.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,110,431 to Moring describes a crossing flow pattern using conventional capillary tubing with minimal resolution loss for the purpose of post column introduction of reactive substances to aid in detection.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,092,973 to Zare et al. describes a capillary with rectangular geometry, which certain specified advantages in a capillary electrophoresis technique.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,073,239 to Hjerten discloses the use of two capillaries to deliver sample by electroendosmotic flow into a closed container whose major exit is through the separating column.
A continuing need exists for methods and apparatuses which lead to improved electrophoretic resolution and improved injection stability.